William S. Burroughs Jr. (born 21 July 1947 in Conroe, Texas; died 3 March 1981 in Orange City, Florida) was an American novelist, also known as 'William S. Burroughs III' and 'Billy Burroughs'. He bears the namesake of both his father, and his great grandfather, the original inventor of the Burroughs adding machine. He wrote three novels, two of which were published as Speed (1970) and Kentucky Ham (1973). His third novel, Prakriti Junction begun in 1977, was never completed to his satisfaction.

Early Life

Burroughs was the only son of William S. Burroughs and Joan Vollmer Adam Burroughs. Without exaggeration, narcotics were in his blood before birth. His mother was addicted to amphetamines, and his father was a heroin addict. Herbert Huncke, a friend of his parents, relates that when Joan was pregnant he would to drive into Houston to obtain an amphetamine inhaled drug called Benzedrine to feed her addiction. It is both telling, all too obvious, and kind of sad, that her son’s first novel was called Speed, a novel she would never get to read.

In 1951, Billy's father accidentally shot and killed his mother in a drunken game of 'William Tell' in Mexico City. He was present in the room. In his second novel, Kentucky Ham, in chapter three, he relates his memory of the day his mother was shot dead, as well as the following reunion with his father after he was freed from a Mexico City prison. While his father stayed in Mexico and his mother buried, Billy went to live with his grandparents in St. Louis. By his own account, Billy said his grandparents were kind and reassuring; yet as they grew older, and he grew into adolescence, his life began to take on a troubled tone.

Mote's and Laura Lee Burroughs' age and inability to relate to Billy as a father or mother, led them to ask his father to take him. William S. Burroughs agreed and Billy was sent alone by air and sea to Tangiers, Morocco, where his father was living and writing what would become Naked Lunch. In Tangiers Billy was introduced by his father to hash smoking, and he encountered several unpleasant episodes of grown men attempting to engage him in sexual conduct. He was only fourteen. By his father's own admission, the visit was a failed attempt at connecting. Billy returned to Palm Beach after Burroughs lover, Ian Sommerville , convinced William that Billy was irrevocably homesick.

As a fifteen year old he ‘accidentally’ shot a friend in the neck with a small rifle, causing an almost fatal wound. This event led him to an emotional breakdown. He relates in Kentucky Ham, he thought his friend was dead and ran away to seek refuge in a girlfriends family's bomb shelter. For a day or so, he planned to flee to California, convinced he had killed his friend. Yet his friend lived, and the police ruled the wounding unintentional. This act did not go unnoticed in exclusive Palm Beach. The manner in which his mother perished at the hand of his father was revived. Billy was sent to a mental hospital in St. Louis for help. Threatening to run away, they brought their grandson home. Despite his many difficulties, Billy did return to the Palm Beach Private School and graduated with his class.

Teenage Runaway Writer

Billy Burroughs wrote two autobiographical novels, which show much promise, and have interest for readers because the novels reflect a Beat Generation sensibility. Kerouac’s On the Road and his father’s Junky can be compared in style and content to Speed and Kentucky Ham. The novels relate the trips of a teenage runaway in the early sixties. His friendships, his drug use, and his social commentary make each novel interesting, if at times unpolished.

Living in a wealthy section of Palm Beach, but restless, haunted by loss, and drug addicted, Billy Burroughs began to spend more time out of his grandparents' care and beyond the reach of school truant officers. Whereas heroin was his father’s drug of choice, Billy followed his mother’s vice, amphetamines, into paternal type behavior- forging prescriptions and visiting doctor’s office to steal prescription pads. Just like his father, he was arrested. Unlike his father, Billy was not an adult, and had the tragic story of his parents' life to temper criminal proceedings against him. Nevertheless, his second novel begins with the narrator being condemned to a four-year suspended sentence, but with a required admission to the infamous Federal Narcotics Farm at Lexington in Kentucky. This prison was one of two U.S. Federal prison hospitals treating persons convicted of federal drug crimes in the United States from the 1920s until the early 1970s. The other hospital was in Fort Worth, Texas. William S. Burroughs writes about his own experience in the prison hospital, his time there was actually voluntary, unlike his sons’, in Junky. Since the hospitals were the only facilities in the U.S. to treat addicts, many addicts would spend much of their life revolving through its gates.

Two other personal qualities are worth mentioning. Unlike his dad, Billy was not a homosexual; he was actually married for a time, and he was also willing to enter into recovery programs for drug addiction and alcoholism. Kentucky Ham was actually dedicated to the founder of a recovery program in Florida. William S. Burroughs never sought similar assistance; although, he did receive medical treatment to moderate withdrawal sickness , and psychoanalysis and scientology to purge his 'Ugly Spirit'.

Publication, Marriage, and Liver Failure

After getting out of the prison hospital, and still on probation, Billy sought treatment at The Green Valley School , a private school run by an eccentric Reverend Von Hilsheimer in Orange City, Florida. It was there he met his wife, a seventeen year old Jewish girl from Georgia named Karen Perry. They were married and lived in Savannah, Georgia. Billy began to write; his wife was a waitress.

The marriage dissolved in 1974, as his wife left Billy because of his chronic alcoholism. Despite the publication of his novels, he was increasingly alienated from friends and family. There were long periods of time when people did not know where he was. When he finally showed up in Boulder, Colorado, to visit his father and Allen Ginsberg at Allen's Buddhist retreat named after Jack Kerouac, he was best described as a derelict . It was during dinner with Ginsberg and his father that he began to vomit blood. The heaving would not stop and he was admitted to Colorado General Hospital with liver failure. There is no doubt he would have died if he had not been in Colorado. The hospital was one of two institutions in 1976 that performed liver transplants . Dr. Tom Starzl had performed over a hundred transplants, with a survival rate of less than thirty per cent. Nevertheless, each time he did an operation, the chances of survival grew, and Billy profited from Starzl's care. Although he spent months in and out of the hospital, and there were many serious complications, the operation was ultimately successful.

The second chance at life was not taken advantage of; despite the obvious risks, Burroughs kept drinking. Many people, notably Allen Ginsberg, had tried to support and encourage Joan’s son, yet his self-destructive behavior eluded all assistance. Billy Burroughs died in 1981 after he stopped taking his anti-rejection drugs , medicine that fooled the body into thinking the transplanted liver was its very own. There is little doubt Burroughs knew what the consequences were of not taking his medicine.

Before his death, and for much of the time after his liver transplant, he began to express open hostility towards his father. He published in Esquire magazine a damning article about how his life was ‘ruined’ by his father’s actions. It was in this article that he revealed he was sexually molested in Tangiers by friends of his father. Sadly, the estrangement between father and son was never reconciled. William S. Burroughs was told of his son’s death while living in New York. Allen Ginsberg was notified that Billy had returned to Florida to reconnect with the founder of the Green Valley School. His body was found alone in a shallow ditch at the side of Florida highway. Liver failure was the official cause of death.

List of Works

• Speed, 1970.
• Kentucky Ham, 1973.
• Prakriti Junction (Unpublished 1977- 1978).
• Article (title unknown) Esquire magazine, 1981.
• Speed & Kentucky Ham: Two Novels, with a foreword by Ann Charters and an Afterword by William S. Burroughs. 1993 - compilation

Due to the similarity in names, Burroughs Jr.'s works are occasionally listed in error by some sources as being part of the William S. Burroughs (Sr.) bibliography.

List of Works as Subject

• Ohle, David. Cursed from Birth: The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr. New York:Grove Press, 2002.
• Morgan, Ted. Literary Outlaw. New York: Avon, 1988. (Father's biography)
• Grauerholz, James. Word Virus. New York: Grove, 1998. (Father's biography)